


Who's This Little Red Riding Hood?

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 01:23:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had not asked to become a werewolf. In his little red hoody, he’d gone out into the woods, not to grandmother’s house but into the woods—and the woods were dangerous because of the predators that lurked there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who's This Little Red Riding Hood?

**Author's Note:**

> For Lena

Scott sprawled out on the bed, hand on his belly, fingers tracing the soft grain of his hair trailing from his navel towards his pelvis. He’d already kicked the sheets and blankets to the foot of the bed against the hot, heavy night, but the air still pressed heavy around him, thick in his lungs, and he swallowed against the weight, against the dry desert swelling his throat as his eyes pricked and sweat silked the hollow of his hips. 

He didn’t get cold like he used to. Didn’t get out of breath like he used to.

His eyes gleamed red in the dark—he thought, he imagined against the pinned tight squeeze of his lids against his eyes bleeding blue hued shadows like the forest. 

Back muscles spiraled in tight cords between his shoulders. Mom would say he needed to relax. Curled over on his side, one hand reaching, reaching, reaching beyond and over his shoulder, his fingers prodded and searched for the strands of knots, trying to unwind them. 

Pricked skin and blood under his fingernails—not claws—and the muscles in his arms shivered and shook as he rubbed the pads of his fingers together, smoothing the red wetness against the whorls of his prints, hands clenching against the pressure of his claws waiting to come out, threatening to push through the thin skin that sheathed them. 

It was so hot. The window should be open, the glass sweating like he sweated against his sheets. Open the window and open the world, exhaust fuming the streets after Prufrock’s heels. Bitter dregs of coffee washed down the drain. Dogs relieving themselves in gutters. Mom’s tamales wrapped tight in cellophane and put in the fridge for lunch tomorrow. The veil of Alison’s perfume over the slick smell of Isaac’s cologne, their sweat underneath it all, hint of mint toothpaste on Isaac’s cinnamon tongue, red foam wiped from his lips with his wrist and then rinsed under water. 

Scott put his hands over the hurt, the one in between the space in his rib cage and the knot twisting into his back. His tongue hung thick in his mouth, his eyes stung and leaked. 

He got up to take a shower, to wash off the sweat, to wash off the salt, to wash off the prickling sense of the wolf waiting to come out and howl. Turned the water to hot so that it steamed, stepped in naked and stood under the burn, breath heavy in his throat and his chest.

He spread his hands against the wet tile. Sometimes, it was like he never got the dirt cleaned out from under his fingernails. He kept them paired short now, not that it mattered. The transformation split them into broken pieces, splitting him from seam to seam, and putting him back together again without a crack to show the boy beneath it all. 

He flexed against the wall, back a lean, lithe line as he maneuvered himself so that stream of hot water pelted steadily against the knot curled tight around his shoulders, his spine, his neck. 

His fingers ghosted over the smooth flank of his side. No scar marked him. No scar accused Peter. 

Was it easier to hurt someone, if one’s body could not bare witness? Was it easier to hunt someone down, if physical pain was temporary, just a ghost somewhere inside, whispering, haunting you, so easy to dismiss like it wasn’t real, like it didn’t matter? 

Scott’s eyelashes fluttered against the water, hands fisted against the white tile, mold in the grot. 

He had not asked to become a werewolf. In his little red hoody, he’d gone out into the woods, not to grandmother’s house but into the woods—and the woods were dangerous because of the predators that lurked there.

People like Peter Hale, the one who’d done this to him, and laughed about it.

Derek had said the bite was a gift, but gifts you could return with the receipt. He’d been given no receipt, no choice to accept or reject.

(Peter had offered the choice to Stiles—raw heat shredded Scott’s belly—but not to him)

In the stories, the wolf was the bad guy and the hunters saved Little Red—but the hunters hadn’t saved him. They’d hunted him down like he wasn’t a teenage boy scrabbling to survive.

He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know how to be a True Alpha. People expected it of him. Thought he had all the answers when sometimes he still found himself on his knees in the dirt, hand scrabbling for his inhaler as something sounded behind him in the woods—could heal from that and other bites, but couldn’t heal the still bleeding, open wound in his memory, and they thought it was healed because his body was healed and they thought it didn’t matter anymore now that his eyes were alpha eyes (hiding the scared little boy eyes with their red sheen)—and what—what would happen if one day he looked into the mirror and saw gold eyes gleaming back at him like Derek’s glittered blue again? What would that mean?

The steam hung heavy in his throat, in his lungs. He breathed deep from his stomach to clear the fog away, to breathe. His shoulders heaved at the shaky inhale of his breath. Wet fingers slid against the shower wall. 

He had to protect his pack—his friends. His family. But he was just a boy, True Alpha status or not.

Who would protect him as they had not in the woods that night so long ago? 

He slid under the luke-warm stream of water until his kneels curled close to his chest, back round against the corner.

He wanted someone. He didn’t know whom he could ask for it. Deaton had already suffered. His mother had already suffered.

It was a big bad world out there full of big bad wolves and big bad hunters and clothes stained red. 

Cool water against his cheeks, his shoulders sagged into the curving jut of his knees, ankles crossed at the bone as he curled in closer, wide spread of his palms splayed against his ribs.

Scar or no scar, this was his body. The smooth skin that stretched across his limbs was wolfskin just as the coarse hair that broke through under the call of the moon—or, even sometimes—himself, the claws that split from him was humanskin. 

He clung to that thought like he clung to his knees until the water ran cold and, shivering, he climbed from the shower, rubbing the wet from his skin with a coarse towel, hair standing up in all directions. He put on his boxers, then his jeans, then his tank. 

He leaned against the counter then, brown eyes peering into the mirror. Closed them, breathed in, and exhaling opened them, rose-red and shining. 

The soft whisper of skin tearing coaxed him to look down at the claws extending from his nail beds. 

He ran the tap water, and let his hand fall under the stream. He soaped his claws, dried them on the still-damp towel. Buffed them with the nail file his mom had left for them, then felt their smoothness against the soft line of his jaw. He traced the muscles of his bicep with those claws, their way caressing down the skin of his forearm until they rested the small pudge of his vulnerable belly, scraping softly at his navel in easy circles. 

He forced the claws to recede, then reached for his toothbrush, topping it with red, cinnamon paste. He barred his fangs, brushing them until pink foam flooded his mouth. Then swished and spat, ran a comb through the thick hair on his head and the thick hair on his cheeks.

Shouldered his backpack, heavy and light with books and homework hastily done—jumped the stairs in a single leap and landed with knees bent, head bowed, boots heavy against the carpet.

"Hey honey" — he heard Mom’s voice in the kitchen. "I made you waffles."

He already knew of course. But he said, “Thanks, Mom” like he didn’t.  

He came into the kitchen with his eyes red, toothpaste on his breath, hair dripping in his eyes.

He slipped into his seat at the table as his mom slid her hand through his hair, clearing the wet bangs from his forehead so she could press a kiss right there—his eyes still red—and said, “I love you, sweetie.” 

"I love you too, Mom." 

Breakfast, as always, was delicious.


End file.
